Kerala HC discharges MM Mani in Anchery murder case

KOCHI: The Kerala High Court on Friday discharged former electricity minister and CPM leader MM Mani and two other accused in the Anchery Baby murder case. Anchery Baby, a Youth Congress leader, was shot dead on November 13, 1982, in Idukki. All  nine accused persons were acquitted by the trial court due to the lack of evidence. 

The case was reopened after Mani, in his infamous “one, two, three” speech on May 25, 2012, claimed that three persons who had opposed the party were killed in the district and Anchery Baby was one of them. He also added that the first person was shot dead, the second beaten to death and the third stabbed to death. 

Mani was arrested in November 2012 in a fresh case registered in connection with the murder case. Justice Sunil Thomas passed the verdict while allowing the revision petition filed by Mani, Pampupara Kuttan and O G Madanan against the Thodupuzha Sessions Court order rejecting their pleas for discharging them from the case. The court observed that the evidence produced by the prosecution was insufficient to direct the accused to face trial. 

It was clear that a few witnesses had deposed on the complicity of the newly arraigned accused. At the same time, they themselves reaffirmed that some of the present prosecution witnesses had earlier been arraigned accused. This not only strikes at the very base of the prosecution case but tells on the credibility of them. With this material, a trial of the accused is not possible.